$14 bounced check costs $285 - privatizing the criminal justice system

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/02/siu.bad.checks/index.html

Bounced-check collection deals draw fire

Story Highlights
Prosecutors can hire private firm to collect in bad-check cases
Critics say private firm is "renting out the prosecutor's seal"
Company makes money with mandatory money-management classes
Consumer watchdog group files lawsuits in three states to stop practice

By Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) -- Michelle O'Neil and her husband Michael are young, scrambling to stay afloat financially and, by their own admission, not the best money managers.

Both acknowledge they wrote two bad checks, totaling about $200, as they were moving from Florida to Michigan in late 2007. The bad checks, they say, were mistakes. But nearly a year after they settled in a Detroit suburb, letters and phone calls followed from Florida.

"They told me they were part of the attorney general's office," Michelle O'Neil told CNN. "And that was scary in the sense that I've never had any legal problems. I'm a teacher."

But the calls weren't coming from a state agency. They were coming from a company hired by a Florida county prosecutor's office to collect on bounced checks.

The firm -- American Corrective Counseling Services, or ACCS -- splits the money it collects with the prosecutor's office. But it also makes money from financial management courses that people who wrote the checks are required by law to attend at their own expense. And the company's contract with the prosecutor's office states those classes are its "principal business activity."

The $14 check Michael O'Neil wrote to a Florida drugstore ended up costing him $285, including the $160 class fee.

O'Neil said he and his wife tried to make good on the checks with the merchants involved and pay any fees required. But he said the companies told him it was too late -- they had turned the matter over to ACCS.

[Myrina]

1. Yep, the American way: Penalize the poor for being poor by keeping them poor.

:mad:

[Dogmudgeon]

2. There is only one way to stop this barratrous bullshit

Sue.

Punitively, aggressively, and on as many particulars as the law will allow.

Then call the Press.

--d!

[PM Martin]

3. Since when are you required to take classes for bouncing a check?

:wtf:

[Myrina]

5. Yah, its an all-day guilt trip on 'personal responsibility'

:wtf:

[derby378]

4. Maybe I should privatize the way I handle my next traffic ticket

You clocked me at 10 over the speed limit? Well, officer, I'm afraid my citation mediation service charges a $14 acceptance fee for taking the ticket from you as well as a base $10 fee for every mile per hour over the limit I'm accused of exceeding. Now, if you'll please sign here...